ハヤテのごとく！/Hayate no Gotoku manga volume 18 review
Hayate the Combat Butler Volume 18

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SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

Young Hayate takes the ring from Ah-tan and returns to Earth to arrange for Ah-tan to live with his family. His parents take the ring “for safekeeping” but then turn around and hock it.  Hayate doesn’t know this and returns to the castle, but Ah-tan is angry because Hayate trusted his parents and the precious ring is gone. She fights him with a sword and during the, Hayate sees a giant, spectral skeleton behind Athena, which appears to be controlling her in some way. Athena sends Hayate away, but after he leaves, she regrets it and cries, wishing she could hear Hayate call her name again.

Hayate is depressed as he walks in the rain when he bumps into his older brother. His brother advises him to apologize, but when Hayate returns to the field to access the castle, he finds the way closed and a sign up, announcing the construction of the future Hakuou Gakuin.

In the present, Hayate awakens and reflects on why he’d buried those memories of the past and kept his heart shielded from Ayumu. As he agrees to spend the day with Nagi, in Greece, a teenaged Athena is with her current butler, reflecting on her dream about Hayate and her need to open the path to her Garden again before Nagi’s grandfather takes it.

Nagi makes plans for Golden Week and asks Isumi about her plans while Yukiji attempts to entice Hina to take a trip overseas so that Hina can pick up much of the cost.  Nagi ultimately decides that they will take a trip to Greece, using the pamphlet she donated to a local raffle (which includes a trip to Turkey as well as Greece).

At Wataru’s video shop, Sakuya asks about his plans with Saki, which he doesn’t have since he doesn’t see the point. So, Sakuya announces that the three of them will be going to Las Vegas with Saki as the adult chaperon.

Maria discovers a love letter for Hayate in the mail and delivers it to him. Since all that’s in the letter is the word “love” repeated for an entire page, Hayate is worried about a stalker but decides that maybe a gentle rejection is in order. However, Nagi disagrees with this course of action since the person sending the letter is a yandere.  Nagi writes a brief, insulting letter back, but no sooner than it is put in the mail, they have a response with the word “kill” filling the page.

Nagi decides that the way to fight this is to write a script and have Hayate and Maria go on a fake date. So, the two head to Harajuku and hold hands while back at the mansion, Sakuya learns about the situation from Nagi as well as Nagi’s plan. Father Radiostar hears this and goes into a rage, having been the one to write the letters in the first place, and takes off to find the dating couple.

Following Nagi’s script, Maria takes great delight in the part where Hayate has to try on girl’s clothing in a clothing store. Ayumu happens to be in the same store and seeing Hayate in this condition, decides she needs to get out of town for Golden Week.  Maria’s delight changes when the next part of the script has Hayate watching her try on swimsuits.  It is during this that Hina comes upon them and decides that going overseas might not be such a bad idea.

Hina and Ayumu run into each other and start to follow Maria and Hayate while those two go to an aquarium.  Hina starts getting into the aquarium while Maria finds herself “losing” to Hayate even though the date is supposed to be fake.  Thus, Maria starts looking for an opportunity to gain the advantage of Hayate while Father Radiostar possesses a penguin, hoping for an opportunity to get into Maria’s arms.  Instead, he ends up in Hayate’s arms, but when Maria sees them, she is cold about the situation instead of finding it cute.  Father Radiostar is stunned by this and Maria is happy at “winning” in this date.  Ayumu and Hina ask Maria and Hayate if they are dating, which the two deny.  Ayumu is relieved, but Hina says they could have been lying.

At school, Aika catches Chiharu in an embarrassing moment, leaving Chiharu frustrated about being accused of open and unguarded, especially since Chiharu finds Hina to match that description. Chiharu leaves and finds Nagi playing a game with her panties exposed.  Nagi gets angry about being accused of being open and unguarded since she too finds Hina the open and unguarded one. However, the manga Chiharu has causes the two to click briefly before getting irritated over different reasons for liking the manga.  Chiharu witnesses Izumi in an unguarded, panty-flashing moment before seeing Hina apparently not paying attention and catching a baseball hit to her without even looking. At that, Chiharu realizes that Hina really has it together.

Yukiji continues her quest to find money to get her overseas trip while Nagi gets her first pay packet. While she wants to save the money for Hayate’s present, she decides to spend a little on herself after talking with Hayate and buys an old camera that Hayate says can easily be repaired. Meanwhile, Yukiji goes to see Kaoru and destroys one of his Gundam models in frustration. Hearing about her strong desires to go overseas, Kaoru decides to take a chance and invites her to go to Italy for clothing, though she doesn’t think the brand he chose would look good on him.

Finally, Ayumu decides to try for the Agean Sea trip in the shopping district since Hayate is going to Greece but fails. However, Risa gets Ayumu into a quiz contest where the grand prize is that same trip. Ayumi is up against Fumi-chan, who’s stupidly smart.  Meanwhile, Hina gets talked into being Red Ranger again as part of the quiz. As such, when Ayumu states that Red would climb to a high place, Hina does it for her so that Ayumu wins the game and the trip.  At some point, Ayumu realizes that it must have been Hina in the suit and so decides that she will invite Hina to go with her, assuming she can get Hina on the plane.

Thoughts/Review:

And so, Hata-sensei sets up things so that Hina, Ayumu, Risa, Izumi, Miki, Nagi, Hayate, and Maria to Greece, after having two omake stories ages ago showing that it would happen.  As such, I’m rather excited to see the trip finally take place.

On a more serious note, the ending of the flashback story about Athena was rather heartbreaking. Hayate’s parents had always been rather loathsome, but it was in a more comedic vein and so one just wrote it off as Hata-sensei being over the top in the name of comedy.  However, in a serious story, their actions are seen for what they are and man, it is not a pretty thing.  I really found myself getting angrier at the mere thought that such people live and breathe even now.

Still, with Hayate going to Greece, I’ve no doubt that we’ll see Hayate and Athena reunited. That should be interesting to see how this affects Nagi or if Athena gets upset at Hayate being Nagi’s butler.

So, Hata-sensei doesn’t explain what the spectral skeleton was in the story but does so as an extra. “King Midas?”  Hmmmm…not really sure about this mythical person looking like a demon skeleton, but his Greek connection is another reason for having Hayate go to Greece, eh?  ^_~

The date with Hayate and Maria was humorous and cute, allowing Hato-sensei to reinforce the notion of an attraction between the two characters and thus Hayate’s harem. I did laugh that Father Radiostar was the one behind the love letter Hayate received.

Speaking of humor, Fumi-chan rocks. Her appearance in the quiz competition was so awesome, especially when she was asked to draw the symbol for a fire station, and she makes an elaborate drawing of a murder scene with the victim drawing the symbol in his own blood.  *lol*  Man, I just love Fumi-chan.  ^_^

As an aside, since Hato-sensei name-dropped Fujiko from Lupin III earlier in the volume, I’m 99% sure that he drew a cameo of Goemon during the quiz contest.

On the Viz side, no translator notes (still) but the established honorifics remain. I was disappointed that Hayate’s older brother didn’t have the brother title/honorific used but the English translation.  While I’ve loved the English adaptation for using “ojousama” and “waka” as well as other terms, the wishy-washy nature of handling brother/sister honorifics has been disappointing. I wish they’d just uses them and be done with it, even if the term “aniki” is used.

I’m glad to have another volume of Hayate the Combat Butler from Viz, but I wish they weren’t being released so slowly. Well, at least the wait for the next volume won’t be as long, providing Viz doesn’t delay volume 19’s release.